Only If For a Night
by Mlee.Write
Summary: One-shot inspired by the season 5 promo. Jisbon.


Title: If Only For a Night

Author: Mlee Write

Rating: M

Spoilers: Season 5 promo, 4 x 24

Summary: One shot inspired by the promo, and by the song If Only For a Night by Florence + the Machine. Jisbon.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the Mentalist and am not making a profit from this.

Her lips are foul against his, corrupting. His sweet Lorelei, singing to him from her slippery, moss covered rock, luring him to the water's edge so she can drown him. She tastes cold, salty, like the deepest, dark green river.

When they part it is with a smack. It's the sound of his desperation to be away from her.

He can feel his shame in the marrow of his bones. He has slipped so far past reason. He looks into her sly dark eyes and realizes that Angela wouldn't recognize the man he's become. His vanity has always pushed him to the precipice of amorality, but now he's falling over the edge, scrabbling and grasping for some purchase.

Red John is so close he can taste it. It tastes like blood.

XXX

She is incandescent with rage.

Teresa isn't jealous; Jane's sex life is his business. She knew long ago that no matter how much either of them might dance around their budding attraction, it could never take bloom. She is furious that he has let himself sink so damned low.

All these years she's believed in Patrick Jane. She has seen the goodness in him, shining out behind the edges of cruelty and condescension. She has watched him reform.

Until now.

She prayed for him when he disappeared into supposed madness and desolation. She accepted his fall because even if was no longer with her, he was still Jane in some way.

She helped in him in his insane con to catch Red John. She let him fire those bullets at her chest, feeling each stinging impact as they slammed into her bulletproof vest. She let him tell her he loved her, then take it back.

But this is too much. He may have used Lorelei in the midst of the con, but to continue to play this out now, when he is safely home, it's too much of an insult.

She stalks out of her office. She knows her expression is thunderous when she sees his eyes widen.

He has the gall to tell her, "I told you not to listen."

"I am not your girlfriend," she nearly shouts. "I am an officer of the law."

That's the only title she's confident of now. She will never be a wife or a mother. She isn't a particularly good sister or aunt. She is a cop, to the bone, and she has come perilously close to losing that for him too.

"I know you aren't," he says, and it's the regret in his voice that pushes her over the edge.

"Don't you fuck with me like this," she hisses.

Andrews from Vice hears this as he walks past heading for the elevator, looks askance at them.

Jane pushes her into her office, shuts the door behind them. It's late. The office is emptying out. She can feel the quiet pushing in on the walls of her office. It is oppressive. She wants to scream to break it.

Her hands are clenched at her sides.

"You can hit me if you want," Jane says. "I deserve it."

He is silhouetted in the soft light from her desk lamp. He is golden and disheveled, an angel who has fallen too far. He is dusty and damaged, his obsession a disease that she can feel infecting her with every breath.

She has given him too much faith.

Her knuckles pop as she squeezes her fist.

In an instant she releases herself from whatever bond she felt she bound her to him. He is just a man now; she pulls him from his pedestal. She had respected his mourning for his dead wife and child; she had held it sacred. Now he is just human.

Now he owes her. So damn much.

She takes his shirtfront in her fist and pulls him toward her. She kisses him with a ferocity that is painful. His lips are closed. Her own lips are cut by her teeth.

He sucks in a desperate breath, like a rabbit struggling against the grip of a hawk.

Then he opens his mouth, and drags her down with him, deep, deep into the darkness.

XXX

When she seals her lips against his, hot and soft, parts of him he had forgotten wake up. Desire wakes up, low in his belly, slowing kindling into a pyre.

This is not lust. This is not male attraction for a beautiful woman. Those instincts do not fade.

He remembers now what it is to be set alight by the whole person; he is as consumed by her taste and touch as he is by his love for her.

He sees her so clearly in his mind's eye, her hair a dark halo around her head. She is brilliant, emblazoned by her goodness, her strength. She carries a burning sword and wears an expression of serenity that is nearly holy. She is a protectress and avenging angel.

She is bursting with compassion and fearlessness. She let him fire those rounds at her narrow chest to catch a monster. She never stopped praying for him, when surely he didn't deserve it.

She made him laugh. All those years, she made him laugh and smile and feel warm again.

He knew that he loved her, his only friend, but now he realizes he is in love with her. That love seems to burst from his chest with such violence that for a moment he's afraid he's going sob.

He wants to hold her close, make love to her, and stay with her always. He wants all the sweet domestic things they can never have. It's hope. He's never allowed himself hope because it opens him up to more unimaginable pain, but now he hopes, he prays, that when Red John is gone, she will love him back. He will prostrate himself for her, he will beg.

He draws a deep breath, overwhelmed.

Her eyes open, uncertain.

He wants her now, more than he's ever wanted anything in his life. He kisses her, the way he should have years ago. His mouth is cruel and tender at once, eliciting moans from her that send shivers to the base of his spine.

His lips find the soft skin of her jaw, her neck. She is velvety soft and smells of cinnamon and coffee. Her hands slip from his chest to his back, pulling him closer to her. They are backed against her desk and she scoots up on top of it, wraps her legs around his waist.

Even through several layers of fabric, he feels her heat. It's intoxicating, and for a moment his mind goes white with desire. He presses against her, seeking permission—no begging, to continue this.

She is small and strong and her limbs pull him to her. He vaguely hears the sound of picture frames and file folders hitting the ground.

He finds her mouth again, kisses her savagely, worshipfully. His tongue fills her mouth, a wicked little promise. He wraps his arms around her waist and picks her up, carries her to the couch. The moment her back hits the cushions she is pulling his shirt and vest apart with trembling fingers.

He unbuttons her shirt, astonished by his calm. He traces the lacey edge of her bra, fingers skimming her pale skin. She has a small mole on the top of her left breast. He kisses it, inhales the scent of her skin.

The bra is gone and he takes coral-pink nipples into his mouth, one at a time. He relishes the sensation of them hardening against his tongue.

Her hands are impatiently working at his belt, opening his slacks, stroking him now. He squeezes his eyes closed, somewhere between ecstasy and pain.

He wants to take this slow, to savor it, but she is pulling off her own pants with alarming speed. He sees the sweet little thatch of hair between her thighs for only a moment before she guides him to her, pulls him inside her body, arching her back as they join.

There are not words for this sensation. There are not thoughts. Colors flash behind his eyelids, sapphire blue and brilliant evergreen. Her nails are sharp against his lower back, urging him on. He tries to keep his wits, but he is frantic with the need to be with her, to be in her, as deeply as possible.

Her moans are dark and rich, like chocolate. The fact that he is drawing them from her body sends a frisson of pleasure through his body.

"Jane," she whispers hotly against his ear. "I need…I need…"

"I know," he replies, drawing her closer into the cradle of his arms, sheltering her as the onslaught of their lovemaking as it batters at them like a hurricane.

"Teresa," he says. "I love you."

She squeezes her eyes closed as she finds her release, her breathing reedy and tremulous. "Patrick, don't leave me." It comes out on a sob.

He feels the depth of her need even as his own body shatters above her. He draws her against him tightly, both of them slippery with sweat. He crushes her against his chest, heaving breaths.

"I won't let you go," he promises. "I won't ever let you go."

XXX

When they part it is quietly. They are at war with a monster, with his own personal Moriarity. He came so close to the falls, but she pulled him back.

They will not speak of this again, not in words. In their eyes is a pledge, to hope, to wait.

Much later Lorelei smugly tells him, "You're a little bit in love with her, you know."

He pretends to be shocked. If only you knew, he thinks.


End file.
